Ty's First Flight

Our most recent adventure was our trip to Westcliffe, Colorado to see my mom and Steve! Due to a conflicting BJJ tournament, Ty and I flew both ways by ourselves. I wasn't worried but I didn't really sleep the night before we left because I was so concerned about whether or not I had everything I needed, had in the correct spot, etc. All said and done we did really well! On our first flight out we were sitting in between a Grandma and a man who had a 3 month old baby at home, so they were both very understanding. Ty insisted on standing and bouncing in my lap for the duration of most of the 2+ hour flight so he made friends with the people in front of us and across the aisle. Other than a blowout diaper and outfit change in a veeeeeery small airplane bathroom, it was a very smooth trip. Our time in Colorado was spent walking around my family's 35+ acres, traveling to nearby tourist spots, and enjoying our time with family! Westcliffe is a teeny little town and the house is about 20 minutes outside of town (and by "town" I mean "street") and about an hour from any big city (and by "big city" I mean 40,000 people) so it's rural to say the least. We loved relaxing and enjoying our surroundings and, as Eliot would say, Ty got to build lots of new synapses. This is in reference to my explanation to Eliot that when Ty is exposed to new things more and more synapses form in his brain. So when we do cool things (i.e. go to the aquarium, visit a wolf sanctuary outside of Westcliffe, wander around a property and see a rattlesnake, etc.) that we think are cool but Ty won't remember, we are least happy to know that he is building more synapses :)

Wake up Auntie Ray Ray! Poor Rachel was left to sleep in the living room since we got the guest bedroom....sorry Rach!

Watching the cows grazing on the property. There's no fences so you always have to shut the garage door so you don't get any unexpected visitors!

Daddy and Auntie teaching Ty to moo. There was a lot of laughing when a nearby cow started mooing VERY loudly in response to our mooing session.

At the Royal Gorge with my mom and sister. The Arkansas River flows waaaaaaaaay down below this bridge!

On the bridge! I wore Ty all over on this trip and since you're supposed to avoid sunblock until 6 months of age, he was always in a hat. If it wasn't cool enough for footie jammies (a very convenient way to cover up, if you ask me) I used this sun cover. It was awesome! It only weighs 4 ounces and is SPF 45 so it doesn't get hot under there. Since the house is at nearly 8,000 feet elevation and nearly everywhere else we went was at least at 5,000 feet I wanted to be extra careful! OK, end commercial ;) Also, a big shoutout to my husband who makes our diaper bag look quite masculine here....and he even wore it while pushing my mom up some seriously steep hills!

View of the bridge

Loving on Grandma

On our last full day, I drove into town to meet my mom and sister for a haircut. On the way I got stopped by cows in the road, ran over a very long snake, and saw these thee antelope. They were actually very close to the road initially but by the time I stopped and got out the camera they had moved back. 

Looking back on the house from one of our daily walks around the property. There's great views and lots of things to see...particularly multiple cow, calf, and coyote skeletons. 

One of not-so-exciting-but-still-sort-of-interesting things we saw around the property was poop! Deer poo, rabbit poo, cow poo, coyote poo....all kinds! After almost two weeks we were generally pretty confident at identifying the maker of the pile, but this one stumped me. Someone described elk poo as being sort of like mini cow poo, which is what this sort of looks like....but then again it could just be calf poo. Who knows?!

Can't beat that!

HAPPY TRAILS!

From the Mountains to the Sea

Our month of recent travels started the last weekend of July when we went up to the Kelly cabin in Truckee. We enjoyed the cool weather, hung out with Eliot's parents, brother and his girlfriend, and aunt and uncle, and ate some yummy food! The awesome thing about Grandparents is that they just can't keep their hands off a grandbaby...and this lets a Mommy and Daddy do things like read on the couch, go to the bathroom alone...all kinds of crazy things!

No baby bathtub, so Ty and Eliot shared a bathtime!

Grandpa and Ty

Views from the cabin...beautiful!

Eliot speaks to Ty only in Japanese with the hope that Ty will be able to speak back to him in Japanese some day! The cabin is home to many of Eliot's and Vincent's childhood books, so Eliot went through them and found a few to read to Ty. This one was a Japanese alphabet book and Ty was surprisingly quiet and attentive while Eliot read it!

A different sort of tummy time.

 The following weekend we ventured to Monterey (thanks Dad and Maria!!) as an early third anniversary trip. When we told people where we were going, they immediately asked if we were taking Ty. When we said we were, most people offered sympathy. But with our current schedule, we welcomed the opportunity to spend time together....particularly with Ty! Running a martial arts school keeps us hopping so time together is valuable! Traveling with a 3 month old meant we were on baby schedule, but we're always on baby schedule so no worries there. Eliot and I talked ahead of time about how we would enjoy relaxing together after Ty fell asleep, but Eliot fell asleep when Ty did so even though I didn't get to have hubby time, I got to read in bed and sometimes that's a treat, too :)

Ty's first trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium

I wondered how much he would get out of an aquarium trip at 3 months old, but he LOVED looking at everything in the big tanks!

Biiiig fish!

Loving being on Daddy!

Whale Watching

Slept through most of it, including the whale we saw! But woke up to have a blowout diaper, of course. You haven't lived until you've changed a diaper and an outfit on a table in not-so-clean room of a rocking boat!

Happy Anniversary!

Had to slip this cute picture in!